In an abrupt move, on Sunday May 22, the government of Punjab issued a notification that bound all schools in the province to shut down from May 24 - because the weather had turned extremely hot for students to go out in the open and attend school.
Earlier, the summer vacation had been announced from June 1 and the timings of schools were reduced to a couple of hours to facilitate students in intense heat.
This move was almost a repeat of the decision taken on January 25, 2016 to close down schools due to extreme cold. On both these occasions, private schools protested the decisions which they said had been taken without taking them into confidence. As a large number of schools refused to shut down, the state machinery got active, raided the schools that were open, imposed fines and issued warnings to the violators.
An additional concern for certain private schools this time was the exemption given by the Punjab government to schools that were holding annual exams. They objected that this provision was only for elite schools where the children of the influential were enrolled.
This situation has led to a debate among school owners, students, parents and other stakeholders about the negative impact of repeated closures of schools on one pretext or the other, security threat or weather, and the alleged failure of the state to ensure safety of students.
Kashif Mirza, President, All Pakistan Private Schools Federation (APPSF) alleges that the government has shifted the entire onus of security on schools. In order to avoid embarrassment, he says, they cite extreme weather as the reason for closure but do not realise that people are well informed and know the real reason behind such decisions is security threat.
The public and private schools were closed in January, four days after the attack on Bacha Khan University in Peshawar, and now due to the threats in wake of the killing of Mullah Akhtar Mansoor in drone attack in Quetta. However, "the government does not admit that the security threat has led them to order closure of schools," he adds.
Mirza’s claim is not unfounded; in fact it is corroborated by a letter issued by the Home Department on May 19, 2016 that states, "It has been reliably learnt that Tehreek-e-Taliban is planning to target educational institutions at Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and Multan in near future. Bahauddin Zakriya University and Nishtar Medical College are their preferential targets. Commander Mullah Umar Mansoor alias Naray has issued directions and dispatched 06 suiciders for the same."
Mirza agrees threats from militant are always looming above our heads, but, "will the schools and students have to always pay the price in a situation where such threats are permanent?" The government, he adds, must realise that postponing exams and announcing extra leaves "affects the academic calendar, and promotes the culture of academies and tuition centres where parents have to send their children to complete their school courses".
Abrar Ahmed, a private school owner who has challenged the order in court, tells TNS that the Punjab education minister ordered abrupt closure of schools giving them only a day to assign homework for summer vacations. "The educational institutes wanted to hold examinations, assign homework and collect fees before they released students. But they couldn’t continue as planned as they were warned of strict action and huge fines if they remained open for even a day".
In the midst of this chaos are accussations of some elite schools getting preferential treatment. A director administration of a leading school chain tells TNS on conditions of anonymity that their students were allowed to take their examinations because their academic year starts in September and ended in May. So, he adds, all the students in the O and A-level stream had to take their annual exams that made some schools feel discriminated against. "There were a couple of schools that started their exams late but they got due approval from the concerned authorities," he says.
Rana Hasan Akhtar, Additional Secretary, Schools Education Department, Punjab dispels the impression that only students of elite schools were allowed to take their exams and those from the middle and low range schools were not. He says, "all schools whose students were supposed to take promotion exams were allowed to continue".
He says it was made binding on such schools from all over Punjab to submit their date sheets to respective district education officers in order to avail this option. The schools that were taking mid-term or quarterly exams were not eligible to stay open and those who defied the government instructions were issued warnings -- "Hence, the impression there is discrimination."
Though Akhtar does not confirm that the recent closure of schools was due to the security threat and not hot weather, he insists that his department does coordinate with schools on a regular basis and ensure that they make required security arrangements inside the premises. "Their expectations from the state are justified but they cannot be allowed to relax and breach security guidelines."
So, will it ever be possible the educational institutes will remain open despite security threats and that law enforcing authorities provide a feeling of security to the masses, regardless of the scale of threat?
Haider Ashraf, DIG Operations, Lahore Police agrees that security is the state’s responsibility. He insists that its role has to be clearly defined. "Nowhere in the world even in the developed countries the state has enough resources to guard each and every establishment. The private resources are involved as well and cooperation between the two is the key to safety".
In case of Lahore, he adds, "there are around 7,000 educational institutes of which 338 have been put in A category for being high risk sites. These are places where police deployment is made and the conditions spelled out in the Punjab Security of Vulnerable Establishments Ordinance 2015 implemented strictly. Then there are B category schools where all the above stated steps minus the police deployment are taken."
Ashraf points out that schools are asked to deploy guards inside the premises and, ensure no unauthorised person enters the premises, walls are built to a certain height with barbed wire or razor-edge wire placed on top, train students on how to respond emergency situation, install panic alarm button to inform police in time and so on.
On the criticism from private school owners regarding intelligence failure, he says the invisible security is very much there in the form of CCTV cameras. Besides, there are projects under way to make the city safe through remote monitoring and establishment of command and communication centres.